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		<title>A bad week for coursework &lt;https://y.st./en/weblog/2017/10-October/05.xhtml&gt;</title>
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		<header>
			<h1>A bad week for coursework</h1>
			<p>Day 00943: <time>Thursday, 2017 October 05</time></p>
		</header>
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2017/10/05.jpg" alt="Mint in a flower bed" class="framed-centred-image" width="800" height="480"/>
<section id="general">
	<h2>General news</h2>
	<p>
		I haven&apos;t seen any pantry moths in several days.
		Hopefully I&apos;ve managed to clean them all out of my place.
	</p>
	<p>
		This new bike rides very differently than any I can remember using.
		It&apos;ll take some getting used to, though I think overall, it might be an easier bike to use.
	</p>
	<p>
		The person hired by our franchise owner to manage all their restaurant locations was in today, and mentioned that it&apos;s still odd for them seeing the name &quot;Alex Wyst&quot; (pronounced in a way that rhymes with &quot;heist&quot;) on the paperwork, as they&apos;ve known me for years under that other name.
		That was a new mispronunciation to me.
		I hadn&apos;t heard that one before.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="university">
	<h2>University life</h2>
	<p>
		It seems that the date course registration was initially scheduled to close is the date it&apos;s actually going to open.
		So I wasn&apos;t able to register for courses today.
		Instead, I&apos;ll have to wait another twenty days.
	</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;m extremely frustrated by both the main assignments this week.
		In <span title="Web Programming 1">CS 2205</span>, we&apos;re dealing with the Codecademy website again.
		The obvious problem is that Codecademy is painful to use due to its non-responsive JavaScript-laden design.
		However, that&apos;s not even my issue with these Codecademy-based assignments.
		The problem is that the Codecademy website underwent an update while the assignments at the university never did.
		As a result, the assignments ask us to do what can&apos;t be done, leaving us in an ambiguous state wondering what we should do instead.
		In <span title="Operating Systems 1">CS 2301</span>, the assignment tells us to use a specific application.
		The whole assignment revolves around that particular software, and in addition to it being proprietary, it&apos;s available for Windows only.
		What am I supposed to do!?
		I&apos;m on Debian 9.
		I have no access to any Windows-ba .... oh wait, I do.
		As I type this, I realise I can use the public library&apos;s machines if worst comes to worst.
		I can make this work in a pinch.
		Anyway, I was going to say I have no access to any Windows-based machines, and even if I was willing to buy a copy of Windows just for this one assignment, I wouldn&apos;t be able to afford to.
		I know another student is working on OS X as well, so they&apos;re going to run into issues with this assignment most likely as well.
	</p>
	<p>
		Before finding a way to complete the Windows-based assignment, I wrote to the professor about it and posted in the course forum.
		I&apos;d still like an answer.
		I only want to use the library machine as a last resort.
		I&apos;d much rather have a way to complete the assignment without proprietary software on my Debian-based machine.
	</p>
	<p>
		I should&apos;ve waited at least a few days for a response and completed my other coursework in the mean time.
		However, I couldn&apos;t focus, knowing that something could go wrong.
		For example, what if this application requires the Windows equivalent of root access?
		I wouldn&apos;t be able to use my backup plan at all, and having waited too long, I wouldn&apos;t have time to come up with a new plan.
		I went to the library to try to get the screenshots I&apos;d need if I ended up having to use the proprietary, Windows-based software for my assignment after all.
		The first computer I tried wanted to &quot;repair&quot; my <abbr title="Universal Serial Bus">USB</abbr> drive.
		I told it not to, as there wasn&apos;t anything wrong with my drive and I didn&apos;t want my assignment files lost.
		After that though, it refused to even acknowledge my <abbr title="Universal Serial Bus">USB</abbr> drive&apos;s existence, so there wasn&apos;t any way to go back and let it mess up my drive like it wanted to.
		I tried a second computer at the library, and it wanted to do the same thing.
		This time I let it.
		From there, everything seemed to run smoothly, and I got the screenshots I&apos;d need.
		I was planning on working on the rest of my assignment at that time too, but instead just took the screenshots home with me.
		Once home, I found that Windows had borked my drive, so Debian could no longer read it.
		At least not at first.
		After a while, it started treating the drive normally and I was able to retrieve the screenshots.
		It took only a couple minutes, but that was long enough for me to start getting very peeved with Windows for messing up the drive.
	</p>
	<p>
		I find I have a very low tolerance for Windows garbage.
		I dealt with Windows always being a thorn in my side for years, meanwhile, the public schools I went to always used Apple machines.
		Because of the Apple machines, I saw that computing didn&apos;t <strong>*have*</strong> to be painful, and I quickly developed a distaste for the distasteful Microsoft system.
		These days, I use Debian, which is so much nicer than anything Apple&apos;s come out with, but I will likely never let go of my grudge against Windows, especially as most people seem to assume everyone else uses it and yet that system is the root of almost all computer issues people face, as far as I can tell.
		Unless the issue relates to hardware support, in which case the blame rests with developers that don&apos;t release their firmware code, I can usually point out exactly how a given Windows issue is simply missing from the Linux ecology.
	</p>
	<p>
		Unless the professor responds telling me I can use something other than that proprietary, Windows-based software for my submission, I&apos;m probably going to try to replicate the utility of the application using Linux-based tools, then show screenshots of both and talk about both.
		That way, my submission will meet the requirements while still not being an endorsement for this stupid software and stupid <abbr title="operating system">OS</abbr>.
		I suspect I won&apos;t be successful in that endeavour though.
		The people I talked to told me paging is transparent in Linux, so I probably can&apos;t look at it, and kernel memory is protected and can&apos;t be seen either.
		I need both (and more) for my assignment.
	</p>
	<p>
		I should&apos;ve stayed at the library.
		The connection at home kept failing, and it took forever to re-establish the connection each time.
		I&apos;d spend less than a minute connected, then spend a good five to ten minutes trying to get connected again.
		I couldn&apos;t even use the network during that time, either, as it took longer than that for <abbr title="The Onion Router">Tor</abbr> to re-establish a circuit.
		The connection kept dropping before a circuit could be set up.
		It was incredibly aggravating.
	</p>
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